A new exhibition in central Hà Nội is pairing three painters from different generations to ask a simple question: what does memory look like on canvas? Dreaming of Where It Began, showing at the Area 75 – Art & Auction Art Centre in Hoàn Kiếm Ward, brings together People's Artist Đỗ Doãn Châu, Bùi Tuấn Thanh and Doãn Hoàng Lâm — each with a strikingly different way of working.
The show takes its name from a piece by Châu, whose career is unusual to say the least. He trained in painting in Slovakia, graduating with distinction, and went on to direct the Việt Nam Drama Theatre while collecting more than 20 gold and silver medals at national theatre festivals for his stage designs. At this exhibition, his expressionist brushwork moves from the noise of the city towards quiet, inward-looking scenes, drawing on over five decades in theatre and fine art.
Bùi Tuấn Thanh offers a contrast: simplified realist pictures in bright colours that capture the calmer side of the Vietnamese capital. A graduate of the first-ever class at the University of Industrial Fine Arts, he has also taught several generations of painters who have gone on to successful careers of their own.
The third voice, Doãn Hoàng Lâm, is the most experimental. Trained at the Việt Nam University of Fine Arts, he moved from stage design into painting and works with new expressive materials. His pieces lean metaphorical — melancholy, mystical, and rooted in instinct rather than observation.
Put side by side, the three bodies of work act like fragments of a shared city remembered differently. The curators frame it as a conversation between continuity and change, where the past of each artist brushes up against the present — and against the Hà Nội that visitors walk through outside the gallery door.
For travellers, this is a good excuse to step off the Old Quarter's main drag and into the city's contemporary art scene, which tends to get overshadowed by temples, lakes and street food. Hoàn Kiếm is the heart of tourist Hà Nội, so the gallery is easy to slot between Hoàn Kiếm Lake and an afternoon of egg coffee. Art also makes a reliable souvenir here — smaller works and prints can be far more portable than lacquerware — and seeing three painters' personal takes on the capital is a memorable way to understand the city beyond its postcard views.
The exhibition suits a broad range of visitors: anyone with even a passing interest in Vietnamese art, travellers who want a rainy-day activity, or those who enjoy watching how different generations interpret the same place. If your trip is short, an hour here is enough — the show is intimate in scale rather than a sprawling survey.
Full details, including dates and opening hours, can be confirmed with the venue directly before you go.
